That may well be the other airline; tickets for travel on AA on 001 stock happen quickly.

Meanwhile, AA's payment records are poor: only if you save each receipt will you know the amounts paid, as their reservation system seems incapable of displaying successive payments properly. If you book a ticket, then pay a change fee, then pay an upgrade fee, the ticket price displayed on aa.com bears no relation to what you have paid. Clearly AA knows what you have paid, but not in an organised form they can easily display.

So the only way to track the cost with a receipt for each payment is to keep all the receipts that are sent out for the reservation, you cannot look later and work it out from what AA's systems show you.

They are not the only airline with this problem: The payment receipts provded by Easyjet are useless - they don't list all payments and don't show what is a credit and a debit in a clear way.

Travel agent can be the solution - if the travel agent is at least as competent as you and awake and responsive whenever you are. That is possible but is rare, and that is why many travellers prefer to make their own reservation directly with the airline.